Communications systems and devices are becoming increasingly diverse with new technological advancements. Communications devices are now able to support various different communications technologies and protocols. Various communications devices can operate in a communications system, e.g., network, and may communicate with each other, e.g., using direct peer to peer communications, also sometimes referred to as device to device communications, or using an infrastructure element, e.g., with communication between the devices being achieved with signals being communicated via a base station.
Some systems allow devices to operate in multiple modes of communications but do not allow use of the same common frequency spectrum used for infrastructure communications for peer to peer communications. That is, a different frequency spectrum, other than the frequency spectrum used for infrastructure based communications, is needed in some systems for devices to communicate peer to peer signaling, e.g., peer discovery signals.
It would be useful if methods and apparatus could be developed which would allow a device to use a frequency band which is used for infrastructure communication for at least some peer to peer communication. While not necessary for all embodiments, it is desirable that at least some embodiments allow a frequency band which is used to support time division duplexing (TDD) infrastructure communication to also be used, during at least some time intervals, for peer to peer communication.